The real thing?

When a local yarn store, Knot Just Knits, was going out of business last year I bought only a few items. One of them was Mimi Yarn by Lotus, and distributed by Trendsetter, advertised as 100% Mink.

Advertised.

Recently, I pulled out this yarn, wound a ball and decided to knit a shawl with it for a gift. Part way through I was thinking that I would like another skein to allow me to make the shawl larger. That’s when I found this:

Apparently, there never was any Mink in this yarn, just wool, angora, rayon and nylon. It is very soft, but not mink. I was wondering how this could be at the given price. Trendsetter was offering a rebate to your local yarn store (out of business) provided you sent back the original yarn and your receipt. Who keeps yarn receipts? So, without that I thought that I would most likely not get a good response from Trendsetter, and since I was already part way through my shawl, I opted to continue, and just kept weighing the yarn to make sure that I was going to have enough to finish.

Haurni is the pattern that I knit up. and luckily, the designer was very clear that when you finish Part A, Part B uses about 50% of the yarn. Years ago I had knit this shawl, and remembered this part, I just was not certain how close it was going to be. I was able to add an extra repeat in the shawl to make it a tad bit bigger.

The pattern is fun, well written, and easy to expand. You can check out my previous version of this shawl HERE. and HERE, I had forgotten that I have made this twice before!!! And I did have enough yarn to finish, not a ton left, but not a scary nail biting finish.

The shawl really comes alive when it is blocked. I had a specific person in mind for this, I will have to see how I like it when the blocking is finished.

This is a good blog post about the Fake Yarn. Well, a country that poisons their own babies with tainted formula, our dogs with bad pet food, and substituting plastic for rice! I am now even more committed to purchasing yarn that was first grown and spun in the US, and second from a reliable Scandinavian or European country. Or back to spinning my own from fiber of local farmers, the best solution if I have the time.

Careful people, the USDA now allows all of our meat to be sent to China for processing.

That is such a pretty shawl. I would have contacted the company to see if they had any extra yarn anyway, never hurts to ask. I am sorry the yarn was misrepresented, it seems that happens more than we know in all sorts of arenas. Whoever is the lucky recipient will treasure your hard and beautiful work. After-all you are an award winning knitter. Love the color.